Advice for Bill Gates
A reader with an engineering degree read my blog about Bill Gates’ ideas for reforming American higher education, and he offered his advice to Gates:
I’m sure that everyone who has felt the sting of the Gates approach to k12 education will really love his cavalier, innovate, make mistakes and learn approach. How nice for him to treat not just one school or state but the whole nation as his guinea pigs. What was chilling was his terrier like tenaciousness that his focus on education will be there 15-20 years from now until his job is done. Someone out there please give this man a real job to do. His so called philanthropy is killing education, is warping parts of the planet ecologically and is A Confusing Job MarketWe have all heard the stories about how American workers don’t have the skills to get the good jobs there are waiting for them, so American businesses have to hire people from other countries. This is meant usually as an indictment of public education, although it is really quite a stretch since the skills that are allegedly lacking are usually in highly technical jobs, not in jobs where high school students are likely to be prepared. Consider an example of this is in the New York Times on Thursday. The story in the business section goes on at great length about how the CEO of a small web design company in New York City searched high and low to fill This Iowa Parent Wants Real School ChoiceI received an email with a copy of this blog by a parent in Iowa who happens also to be a law professor. He is justifiably incensed that the people, the policymakers and the legislators who love choice have taken away all his choices as a parent. He wants his kids to go to a school where there is no high-stakes testing, but he doesn’t have that choice. He wants his kids to go to a school where teachers are allowed to use their professional judgment, but he doesn’t have that choice and neither do the teachers. He wants his kids to go to a school where his children have time for physical activity and play, but he doesn’t Is This the Future of U.S. Education?I received a notice of a major conference of equity investors in the for-profit education industry. It will be held on July 26 at a private club in New York City. Tickets are $1,195 for the day. The invitation to purchase a ticket came from the respected K-12 journal Education Week, which is a “media partner” for the event. I think I am entitled to a discount because I am a subscriber. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to see the for-profit corporations taking over more schools. A Change in PolicyDear Readers, As you know, I have been posting about four to ten blogs every day since I started doing this at the end of April. There are now more than 300 blogs in the archive. This summer, I am trying to do something I have never done before. I am trying to write a book during the months of July and August. My deadline is Labor Day. I don’t know if I can do this, but I am going to try. The only book that I ever wrote on a short timeline was The Language Police, and that took six months. (My other books took years.) I am now in the realm of “I think I can, I think I can…” So, to give myself more time to write the book, I plan not to blog on weekends. Maybe I’ll post only three or four blogs a day. I’ll see how it goes. For me, the blogging is so much fun that it is almost irresistible. I love sharing my thoughts, and I love giving voice to teachers and parents through my blog. I think of this blog as my hometown newspaper, but this hometown is not in one geographic spot. So, please do read the blog on weekends, use it as a time to go into the archives. And keep reading Monday through Friday. Diane |